Phone service covers three things: getting a number, deciding what happens when someone calls it, and handling what falls through — voicemail, missed calls, out of hours.
Getting a number
Search available numbers, buy one, and it is provisioned to your organization. You can also bring a number you already own.
Each number is then configured with a routing record that decides how its calls are answered.
Numbers carry a monthly cost and calls are billed per minute. See service rates.
Sending business SMS requires A2P brand registration with the carriers. The platform tracks the registration status per number and shows what each number still needs. Expect this to take days, not minutes — start it before you need it.
Buying one, step by step
1. Search. Filter available numbers by country and area code.
2. Buy. The number is provisioned to your organization and its voice webhook is pointed at the platform for you.
3. Give it a routing record — one of the four modes below. A number with no routing does not know what to do with a call.
4. Start SMS registration if the number will text. It is a carrier process measured in days.
5. Assign it to people so calls reach someone (below).
6. Provision the outbound voice app if staff will place calls, not just receive them (below).
Steps 5 and 6 are the two that get missed, and each produces a different complaint from staff.
Assigning numbers to staff
A number rings the softphone in Appmint Mobile and the browser only if it is assigned. Assignment is held on the number itself, two ways:
| Assignment | Held as | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | The staff member's email on the number | A person's own line. Shows as • yours in the app's From picker. |
| Group | A user group name on the number | A shared line — sales, front desk. Everyone in the group inherits it and it shows as • team. |
A person can hold several numbers by either route, and every device they have signed in on rings in parallel. Someone with no number assigned sees the app's dial pad, SMS and call buttons disabled with No phone assigned to your account — that is an assignment job, not a device fault.
Outbound calling is a separate switch
Buying a number and assigning it makes calls come in. Placing calls needs an outbound voice app, provisioned once per organization and by nothing else in the setup flow.
Until it exists, everything looks configured and staff report the same thing: the phone rings fine, but their calls fail. If that is the complaint, check the voice app before you check the device.
Four ways to answer a call
Every number uses one of four routing modes.
| Mode | What happens |
|---|---|
| Forward | Rings a group of people directly, with an optional greeting |
| AI assistant | AI answers, converses naturally, and transfers to the right team |
| Simple menu | "Press 1 for sales" — a keypad menu with retries and a catch-all |
| Automation flow | A full automation workflow, for anything the other three cannot express |
All four support business hours, holidays, recording, voicemail, missed-call actions and shared forwarding groups.
Forwarding groups
A forwarding group defines where calls ring. Define one, then reference it from anywhere — a forward rule, a menu option, an AI transfer, or a fallback.
Each group has targets, a ring strategy, a ring duration and a fallback.
Ring strategy
| Strategy | Behaviour |
|---|---|
simultaneous | Ring everyone at once — first to answer wins |
sequential | Ring targets one at a time, in order |
round-robin | Rotate who rings first on each call. The counter persists between calls, so it distributes fairly over time |
Targets
A target can be a phone number (E.164), an agent in the app, a queue, or a SIP URI — so a group can mix a desk phone, a softphone user and an external number.
When nobody answers
| Fallback | Behaviour |
|---|---|
voicemail | Take a message |
ai-assistant | Hand to the AI rather than voicemail |
automation | Run an automation |
hangup | End the call |
Whisper and screening
Whisper plays a message to the person answering before connecting — "Incoming call from…" — so they know what they are picking up.
Screening asks them to confirm: "Press 1 to accept this call, or hang up to decline." Useful when calls forward to personal mobiles.
Business hours
Routing can differ by time. You define office hours per day with a timezone, plus holidays and one-off off days.
Priority is: off days → holidays → office hours → normal hours fallback. An off day beats everything, which is what you want when you close unexpectedly.
Voice and greetings
The default text-to-speech voice is a neural one, and you can choose others across English, Spanish, French and German in male and female variants.
For menus you can skip TTS entirely and supply pre-recorded audio — a professional greeting as an MP3 or WAV.
Recording and voicemail
Recording can be enabled with a maximum duration and a retention period. Voicemail can be enabled per number with an email address for notifications, and transcription can be turned on so messages arrive as text.
Consent requirements differ by jurisdiction, and in many places all parties must be told. Configure an announcement where required — the platform will record what you tell it to, but the legal obligation is yours.
Missed calls
Missed-call actions run when a call is not answered — notify someone, create a lead, send an SMS back, or trigger an automation. A cooldown prevents the same caller triggering it repeatedly.
The AI receptionist
In AI mode the assistant answers, holds a conversation, and transfers when it needs to. It uses the same menus as the IVR rather than a separate set of transfer rules, so you configure destinations once.
It can be given instructions, a language, and rules about what it may transfer to. Captured details can create a lead with a source, tags and an assignee.
Setting up the number
Point your number's voice webhook at the platform's incoming-call endpoint with your organization id. The setup flow does this for numbers bought through the platform.
When something goes wrong
| Complaint | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Calls come in but staff cannot place any | No outbound voice app provisioned for the organization | Provision it once; nothing else in the setup creates it. |
| One person's phone never rings | No number assigned to them, directly or by group | Assign the number, or add them to the group that holds it. |
| No phone assigned to your account in the app | Same cause, seen from the device | As above. |
| A number rings nobody | No routing record, or a forwarding group with no reachable targets | Give the number a routing mode and check the group's targets. |
| Calls ring out of hours | Business hours not set, or the wrong timezone | Off days beat holidays, which beat office hours — check in that order. |
| Nobody answers and callers just hang up | The group's fallback is hangup | Set voicemail, the AI assistant, or an automation. |
| Texts never send | SMS registration incomplete for that number | Check the per-number requirements; A2P brand registration takes days. |
| The organization sends email but no SMS | No SMS number configured for the organization | Set the system SMS number; the server sends the email half and skips the text silently. |
| Calls forward to a mobile and get answered by voicemail there | No screening | Turn screening on so the person must accept the call. |
| Recordings are missing | Recording not enabled on that routing record, or retention has expired | Check both, and check the announcement requirement for your jurisdiction. |
| Staff answer on a laptop but not their phone | That device never registered, or they are offline on it | The app's Phone screen has a power toggle that survives restarts. |
| Someone left and calls still ring their phone | Their sign-in unregistered the device only when they signed out | Remove them from the assignment or the group. |